


Count To Ten

by Corvid_Knight



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bro is awful, Dave has PTSD, Disordered Eating, M/M, Mention of Past Abuse, as in dave forgets to eat sometimes, meteorfic, my tumblr is knight-of-heart-and-art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 15:45:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13616529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvid_Knight/pseuds/Corvid_Knight
Summary: Dave forgets things sometimes. Sometimes they're big things.





	Count To Ten

_If he's not where you can see him, count to ten._

That's the rule, even if you're the one who came up with it it's pretty goddamn good, or maybe not good exactly but fucking _functional._ It works, anyway. 

One and two and three and four, if you get to five he's a lil' bit annoyed, six-seven-eight—dammit Dave that's too fucking fast and you know it, come on. 

Count it off right. 

_Six. Seven. Eight. Nine._ Get to ten, start again, and it's still you, just you in the damn hallway that's too dark and too cold. _It's not like Texas. Ten. Nine. Eight._ He isn't here. He's here but you can't see him. _Seven. Six. Five._

If you get to five he's _so_ pissed. 

It's too cold, your shirt isn't enough and neither is your cape but you don't fucking know where you are in relation to your room. Time doesn't help you at all, it lets you know you're counting too fast ( _four and three and two and one fuck fuck fuck_ FUCK _and two and three and four whoops there's five again, you're so screwed_ ) but that's _all_ you know, Space would tell you where you are and Mind or Heart would let you know he's coming but. No. 

No. 

Just Time. _Six, seven, eight, nine, ten nine eight seven—_

He's so mad. He'll be so mad when he pops out of wherever, Cal or him or both of them, it's going to be so fucking bad. You've went from one to ten to one and back more times than you can count, stacks of ten seconds piled up until they're weighting your chest and stealing your breath. _Six-five-four-three-two-one,_ if he figures out you're panicking he'll laugh and point out that this shit's _fun._ Okay, okay, for him it's fun but you just want to be done. Say it's okay anyway, can't change what he thinks. Sure it's fun. 

( _Please just let me be done._ )

You can't breathe and that's shit's not so okay. If you don't have air you can't defend, he's pointed that out standing over you while you try to draw air into bruised lungs. No bruises now, though, just fear; it's worse.

Makes you flinch.

Don't flinch when he ambushes you ( _two and three and four_ ) because if you flinch it'll hurt you more. That's a rule you didn't make. ( _Five. And six. And seven. And eight._ )

So many numbers and you've got nothing but dark cold hallway and Time for your companion. Where _is_ he? How many rounds through before he comes and kicks your ass? ( _Teaches you. Nine, ten, nine, eight, seven._ ) It's got to be time for one of his lessons. 

Breathe, Dave, breathe. Open your eyes, don't walk with them shut. _Six and five and four and three—_ you can hear the memory of a lazy drawl, _how fucking dare you disrespect me?_ Close your eyes, you won't see the strike. Close your eyes, he'll hit you again, that shit doesn't let up until you look at him. Sometimes not even then. Today's a day where he won't stop until you can block. 

It's too fucking cold and you must be counting too fast because it's been ten and ten and ten, a fucking double handful of counts and where is he? Where is he? Where—

A door opens ( _six-five-four don't go for your sword, he'll hurt you worse if you draw before he does_ ) and your nervous system kicks into high gear—he's _here_ , there he is, he'll make you fight now because that's how this shit works—

Except that's the wrong fucking person, wrong species even, and you're suddenly so confused you can't think for a second. It must not show on your face too much, because Karkat just stares at you as you stop dead in the middle of the hallway, huffs and crosses his arms and shakes his head. "What the fuck, Strider?" 

What the fuck, yeah. What the fuck? Where's—

"Where's Bro?" you say, and it seems like you say it quietly but Karkat's eyebrows pull down and together in what might be anger. "What—" 

And you remember. 

How the...how the fuck can you forget this shit? This isn't normal, this isn't _fucking_ normal, forgetting that you saw your goddamn brother dead on the ground with a sword through his chest, that's not normal. You _forgot_ , that shouldn't be possible but you can obviously fuck up more than any sentient being should be able to because hey, get this—you've been walking through the halls of a meteor waiting for your dead brother to jump you. 

"Dave?" Karkat apparently doesn't know how to handle you asking about somebody you very well know is dead, so he's elected to ignore it. The look on his face isn't anger, now that you take another look; you can call it concern. "Dave, are you okay?" 

"Peachy." You might be a couple hundred feet from yourself, and underwater; that's how your voice sounds to your own ears. "It's all good, I'm fine, I—" _Forgot my bro's dead, how's that for okay?_

The wall's too far away when you reach for support. Unfair. It's your own fault, like it always is. Everything tilts and goes a little cockeyed, then a lot, except of course it's really _you_ tilting, isn't it? You're going to go down, wipe out, slam your stupid fucked-up forgetful head against the floor. Shatter your shades and drive a shard into your brain, this death won't be Heroic or Just but it sure as hell is going to be Idiotic. You're going to pass out because you haven't taken a good breath since you remembered about Bro. 

Karkat grabs your arm and holds you up. He's so fucking strong and you forget that every time. 

"Dave, what's going on?" He's also scared. You're scaring him. _Good job, dumbass._ "Can you talk to me?" 

You shake your head: _no. Can't._ There isn't an easy nonverbal signal for _please don't let me go._

He doesn't seem to need you to tell him that, though, because he nods and pulls you into his room and gets you to sit down. Asks you if you've eaten and how you feel, and you shake your head for both the first and second question even though the latter isn't a nice simple yes-or-no. _Then_ he does let you go, goes into the next room where you can hear him (Karkat's not quiet, not ever) but not see him. 

You don't panic. 

You panic a little bit. 

He comes back before you _really_ panic. Sits down next to you, pushes a sandwich into your hands and waits for you to take it. "Eat." 

"Promise it doesn't have bugs 'n shit?" you snark back at him, taking a bite before he can answer. (There aren't bugs.) "You don't gotta play mom to me, man." Your words are coming back at least. Lets you fake being okay. 

Even though you just set him up to tease you for needing him to help, Karkat doesn't take the bait. He just watches you take another bite ( _don't eat so fast you throw up, c'mon, that be so fucking stupid_ ) and shrugs a little bit. His next question isn't all that quiet, but it _is_ gentle. "You asked about your bro?" 

_Shit._ Your throat closes up around a bite of chewed bread and lunchmeat. It's really hard not to gag and choke. 

He waits for you to sort that out. Patient. Karkat actually can be patient, you wouldn't've believed it if you hadn't seen it but hey, here he is waiting on your sorry ass. Kind of amazing when you think about it. And you do think about it, almost—but not quite—long enough to let yourself forget he's waiting for an explanation. 

You're too rattled and fucked-up to dissemble. "I forgot he was dead," you tell him, and shove the last piece of sandwich in your mouth. The tears rising in your eyes can be written off as being there because you just tried to swallow the whole damn thing, if they actually fall. 

"You forgot your bro was dead?" Damn, but you wish you could read tone like a fucking normal person, because there's an emotion in Karkat's voice and on his face, and you don't have a single idea what it is. "Dave—" 

"Yeah, I know, I fucking _know._ " He's going to ask how you forget something like that. How you can just...not remember that Bro's been gone for over a year, never left earth, never left _Texas_ even though you took off and ended up on a meteor hurtling through space at you-don't-know-how-many miles per hour, so fucking fast and so far from where he died. How you can be so goddamn _stupid._ "I _forgot,_ I can't...I can't." 

You duck your head and pull your knees up to your chest. Can't look at him. Maybe he'll give up on you if you don't look at him; you're afraid he will, but that'd be best for him anyway. 

Instead of giving up on you, he gets up and sits even closer to you, wrapping one arm around your shoulders and making a soft chirping noise when you can't keep yourself from leaning against him. Doesn't say anything, though. 

"I'm so fucking stupid," you tell him, and it comes out muffled. "Who the hell forgets that kind of thing?" 

"Shut up." More chirping; that's so reassuring and you don't understand why. His hands pulling you into his lap are even more calming; you remember to breathe as he starts petting through your hair. "Flashbacks don't make you stupid." 

"They're not—" Well. Are they? "I dunno if that's what they are..." 

"It doesn't fucking matter what they are." He huffs and shushes you; it's a sound kind of like a cicada. "You can't help how your brain deals with this shit." 

"I—" 

"Shut _up,_ Strider. You can't, plain and fucking simple." He pushes you back enough to look you in the face, one hand coming up to plant a finger on your forehead, right above the bridge of your nose and a few inches higher than your shades. "You can't help what's happening in here." 

You have to close your eyes because the alternative is losing your cool completely. Not that there's much of that left at this point. 

Karkat waits, and keeps gently petting your hair. Eventually, he says, "We're doing movie night." 

"It's not 'night' right now." You have to point that out, but he just snorts and shifts you off his lap, gets up and goes over to mess with the TV. You can hear him, can't see him—you still don't dare open your eyes. 

When he comes back and drapes a heavy blanket around both you and himself you do look, though. He picked out one of _his_ movies, and you're glad. This is good. 

You still want to count in your head, one to ten and back again. It still feels like Bro's on his way. 

But no. 

If Karkat's here, Bro isn't. 

It's okay. 

You lean against Karkat and watch the movie and—very slowly—calm yourself all the way down, grounding yourself with the feel of his warm body and counting his breaths in multiples of seven, not ten. It's okay. 

You're _okay._


End file.
